Alexandrino Estate or Chernyshev’s Dacha

The Alexandrino Estate is among the largest, most famous, and best-preserved estates along the Peterhof Road. At the dawn of the development of the Peterhof Road, this land belonged to Peter the Great’s own sister, Tsarevna Natalia Alexeyevna.

The emperor’s beloved sister owned the territories of modern Alexandrino only briefly — soon after her death, the lands were divided into two plots: western and eastern. The western part of the former royal dacha became the property of Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, a diplomat, associate of Peter the Great, one of the heads of his secret service, an actual privy councilor, who founded the count branch of the Tolstoy family, distinguished before Peter I by the return from abroad of the fugitive Tsarevich Alexei.

However, after the emperor’s death, the statesman fell into disgrace and died in the prison of the Solovetsky Monastery.

The next owners of the large plot along the Peterhof Road were the Lopukhins and Repnins families. In 1762, the estate came into the possession of its most famous owner — Count Ivan Grigorievich Chernyshov. Son of Grigory Petrovich Chernyshov and Avdotya Chernyshova, one of Peter the Great’s mistresses, who earned the nickname “Avdotya the warrior woman” from him. He was a general-field marshal of the navy, the de facto head of the Admiralty Board during the presidency of Pavel Petrovich. It was under him that Alexandrino acquired its current appearance and gained all-Russian fame. This is evidenced even by the fact that locals and tourists often still call Alexandrino “Chernyshov’s dacha.” Being a brilliant diplomat and military man, he began to arrange his new dacha, striving to bring it in line with his high social status.

Before Chernyshov, there were buildings on the dacha grounds that appeared here even before the Tolstoys. But the old manor house did not satisfy the new owner at all. Ivan Chernyshov decided to build his own mansion and hired the most famous architect of that time — Jean-Baptiste Vallin de la Mothe. The architect, whose name historians and art scholars firmly associate with the era of the emergence of St. Petersburg classicism in architecture, created a project of truly royal scale. The construction of the luxurious house was completed in 1762; at the same time, the Chernyshovs’ first child was born.

Architect Giacomo Quarenghi made an accurate drawing of Ivan Chernyshov’s dacha, thanks to which we can get an idea of the estate at that time.

It is to this architect that several researchers attribute the project of the house’s reconstruction carried out in the 1790s. At that time, the belvedere was covered with a spherical dome, the round windows of its drum were transformed into large semicircular ones, and a triangular pediment was erected on the portico instead of a balcony. The interiors of the central hall, the oval living room, and the grand staircase were newly decorated. At the same time, a similarity was noted between the resulting building and the Tauride Palace, which was designed by Vallin de la Mothe’s student Ivan Yegorovich Starov. There are other versions as well. In general, exactly which architect “laid a hand” on the Alexandrino manor house and how remains unknown.

The mansion, decorated with a four-column portico, was surrounded by a huge park with ponds, which transitioned into picturesque forest thickets. Notably, the Alexandrino estate’s territory stood out for its size: it stretched from the Gulf of Finland to the Ligovsky Canal. The Koyrovskiy stream, now known as the Novaya River, flowed through the park. The stream became the basis for creating a whole system of ponds with islands and a canal behind the main manor house. Park pavilions were located on the islands.

Alexandrino housed a successful greenhouse enterprise. Contemporaries recalled that exotic fruits and vegetables were grown here year-round, which the generous estate owner often liked to treat his numerous guests with. The Chernyshovs loved to entertain guests and were famous for their ability to impress them. Visitors to the estate, in turn, never refused the Chernyshov family’s invitation. According to the memories of Chernyshov’s close associates, high society life flourished in Alexandrino. At noon, a bell rang, calling guests to the octagonal hall in the center of the house to drink healing water brought from a spring located on the estate grounds — this water was considered beneficial and ecologically pure. After Count Ivan Chernyshov’s death, the dacha on the Peterhof Road passed to his son Grigory. In 1809, the estate was sold at auction “due to promissory note claims.” The new owner was first-guild merchant Fyodor Ivanovich Ilyin. Deciding to focus on improving his property, Ilyin, according to some sources, initiated a reconstruction of the creation. However, experts doubt this fact. In any case, he and then his heirs owned the estate for almost 90 years, maintaining the house and park in perfect condition.

Another significant chapter in the estate’s history was when its owner became Alexander Dmitrievich Sheremetev, the great-grandson of Field Marshal Sheremetev. In 1835, he was granted the rank of captain of the Cavalry Guards Regiment; later he received the ranks of aide-de-camp, chamberlain, and hofmeister at the Court of His Imperial Majesty. Holding ranks and occupying one of the prominent and influential positions among courtiers, he owned truly vast wealth and several famous estates and palaces. Architects Benois and Müller developed the project and created the landscape park, which later came to be named Alexandrovsky in honor of its owner. The name Alexandrino also spread to the entire estate. Alexander Sheremetev became the last owner of the estate in the pre-revolutionary years.

In 1904, repairs were made to the main building of the “Alexandrino” dacha, preserving the interiors and the overall appearance of the house. The new owner of the estate was passionate about firefighting and led the fire brigade he created named after Peter the Great. He was also the owner of the neighboring dacha “Ulyanka.” Musical traditions were passed down in the Sheremetev family from generation to generation. Alexander Dmitrievich was also fond of music. In 1882, at his own expense, he created a symphony orchestra, and a little later, in 1889, a choir.

However, the measured pace of life at the Alexandrino estate was interrupted by the 1917 revolution. The estate was nationalized and used as a communal apartment. The palace’s layout was distorted by numerous wooden partitions and extensions. In the large octagonal hall, painted by the famous decorator Scotty, pigs were kept. Vegetable gardens were planted in the park. Along one of the park’s alleys in the 1930s, a wooden settlement was built, named “Standard Settlement No. 3.” The alley was renamed Rechnaya Street. This name can still be found in the city’s toponymic directories.

One of the most difficult and grim periods in Alexandrino’s history were the terrible years of the Great Patriotic War. In 1941, the park found itself on the front line, which ran along the Dudergofka (Ligovka) River. The defense in this area was held by the 109th division of the 42nd army. It was supported by artillery fire from the battleship Petropavlovsk, stationed in the Sea Canal. The palace and the park of the now beautiful Alexandrino suffered greatly during these events.

However, gradual restoration of the former estate began almost immediately after the war. The restoration work was led by architect Mikhail Mikhailovich Plotnikov. In the 1960s, thanks to Plotnikov’s restoration project, the main house of the estate and the park were restored, but the wings and interiors were not. Today, an art school for children is housed here. The revival process also affected the large territory of the estate park. The green area was cleared of the remains of trees felled by shells, drainage work was carried out, the pond system was restored, and valuable tree species were planted.

In the early 1990s, the horror film “Blood Drinkers,” based on Alexei Tolstoy’s story “The Vampire,” was filmed at the estate. In the early 2000s, the TV series “Poor Nastya” was shot here. In 1939, scenes from the film “Doctor Kalyuzhny” with Arkady Raikin and Yanina Zheymo were filmed here.

Source:

https://kudago.com/spb/place/usadba-aleksandrino/

https://www.citywalls.ru/house1365.html

https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/53901

https://vadimrazumov.ru/269677.html?from=sds

https://rodinananeve.ru/aleksandrino-prudy-i-zaprudy-grafskogo-parka/